My Ariel
by Muse Kiisa
Summary: In the musical, theatrical world of Demyx, a bit of reality dared enter- an older girl named Ariel, whom he is head over heels for. Unfortunately, she doesn't care for him, and his best friend Zexion seems to like him instead. AU Zemyx yaoi het


_Title: My Ariel_

_Fandom: KINGDOM HEARTS!_

_Author: Freaky aka Kiisa_

_Ratings/ Warnings: T for swearing and safety. I'll manage to throw something scandalous in here. Like theatre. Or a wonderfully descriptive goosy mushy scene between lovebirds. Yaoi, het, unrequited love, short occasional mentions of OCs, strange slang, maybe even mentions of yuri, high school, alcohol, stuff you have to be smart to understand, long rambles, random references, anything I feel like writing... Warn me if the rating ever should be upped. I wouldn't notice if I went overboard. _

_Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, any musicals or books or songs I already know I will mention, Disney, Final Fantasy, Amaya, my house, my thoughts, privacy, common sense, or anything really _

_A short A/N about the names: In this a/u fic, I've given all the characters last names, because as video game characters most weren't given any. Late one night I was talking to Amaya (aka Keyofra) on the phone, and she was looking up on Wikipedia what other characters the voice actors of both the Japanese and English voice actors of the KH characters had voiced. Out of the coolest/ funniest/ awesomest voices came henceforth the names. Kudos if you can figure them out, if not, Wikipedia them yourself. All I need to add is that since the voice actor of Demyx also voiced both Zack from FFVII and Kovu from Lion King two (Japanese or English I can't remember) Zack is now Demikkusu's (Yes, that's what I call him ) older brother and Kovu is their kitty. By same logic, Kairi has a Nala kitty._

Fic Start!

_Every time I close my eyes_

_A flash of red, my disguise_

_Cover me so you don't see _

_How ashamed I am, how much I love you-_

"Lame."

There was a sound of a pen scribbling viciously across the sheet of notebook paper, and then a harsh tearing as the ninth notebook page of the night was ripped out, crumpled up, and thrown unceremoniously across the room. The projectile came from a High School Sophomore with a messy head of a blonde overgrown mullet of some kind and bleary, tired blue-green eyes, sitting on his bed with a pack of rainbow colored pens and a quickly diminishing notebook, hunched over his unplugged light blue electric guitar. He would have it plugged in and screaming at full blast, but a pained look at the bright green alarm clock remined him why that wasn't possible.

Demyx Fair sighed and finally gave up, mumbling as the put away his guitar and gathered up the pens. "Failure. Imminent failure. Uber sucky failure in a can. You'd think you'd be able to write one song, just _one song_, about her, even if she never knew, something to prove you meant what you felt and you're not just a stupid kid and AH SHIT!" The red pen had bled all over his blue bedspread. "Red," he muttered, "of course." Like her beautiful hair, almost unnaturally red in the midday sunlight, soft fiery glow on the ocean, and no wonder his songs sucked. What did she care anyway? She'd never know.

As he set his alarm clock for the next morning (even though morning was really already occurring) his weary eyes strayed over a picture in a glass frame of his best friends. The whole group, the usual suspects, all thirteen of them and Roxas's brother and friends, who he was almost as close to even though they were younger. Right in the centre he had his arm around his closest, oldest friend, Zexion, and Zexion was giving him a look so rare he had to stare at the picture for a few minutes every time he looked at it to believe it was real.

Zexion looked at him with compassion and caring, like a true friend, instead of the stoic bad-tempered emo kid everyone knew him as. As someone he loved.

Smiling, Demyx set the photograph down and crawled into bed, letting his crazy hair splay out on the soft pastel pillow, staring at the yellow-blue-green-orange walls for a few minutes before he closed his eyes and thought of the only person who could put him to sleep.

_Ariel..._

-

_Water shifted around him, swirling and telling him to listen, trust me, trust me, I swear I'm nice, it whispered. She lied beside him but her words were swept up by the ocean that closed his eyes._

'_...love...'_

_He could see things brightening through his eyelids._

'_...Love you?'_

"_Wake up..."_

_Crimson gold and tickling his face. Blearily try to open his eyes, felt the sting of salt, rewarded with a second's glance of something like her face._

_A song?_

'_you...'_

_You..._

_Wake up, listen to me..._

"WAKE UP!"

-

With his eyes wide open and shocked to the dawn sunlight, lying fallen on the floor tangled up in blue sheets and feeling bruises forming, Demyx remembered why he usually didn't bother with a digital alarm clock- the job was already taken by his older brother, Zack Fair, who woke up an hour before the sun dared anyway.

Once his head stopped swimming and he realized what was going on, it finally stuck in his head that _his brother was back. _He had been gone for weeks with Sephiroth and Cloud, his closest friends who happened to be going out with each other, trying to buy and set up this old movie theatre. (Plug for fanfiction I'm going to write for National Novel Writing Month called Come to the Flickers. Coming this November to a computer near you!) It was proving difficult to wrestle it from the Organization called the Turks that currently owned the building, but they were apparently wearing down on Tseng and Reno a lot. They had decided to make camp outside of their headquarters and not moved for the last three weeks, and Demyx and their friends occasionally joined them, because they were promised jobs if the Flickers was to be theirs. Demyx really wondered how Sephiroth, Zack and Cloud convinced their professors to let them out of College for a few weeks. He wondered what the hell kind of dirt they managed to get on them.

But his brother was back! "ZACK!" He cried enthusiastically, vaulting over his bed and right into the older, dark-haired man. Of course, even if he was a little tall, thin Demyx had nothing against his giant muscled sex-god of an older brother, but Zack humored him by falling over anyway. Besides, their giant, dark brown lion-cub sized cat Kovu got caught up in the excitement and also decided to pounce them. This was rare for the cat, who usually sulked in a way that reminded Demyx of Zexion and refused to play, but he was as glad as Demyx to see Zack returned to them.

"Hey Dem!" Said Zack happily, running his hand through his ecstatic little brother's hair. "How ya been?"

Demyx sighed dramatically and sat up on his knees. "Miserable dahling, Perfectly wretched." He should really lose the habit of quoting Disney movies, and he wondered why no one took him seriously. He smiled. "Not really, I've been fine. How about the theatre?"

Zack grinned widely. "They were almost ready to do anything to get us away, because we stopped the coffee delivery. But ShinRa told us we were disturbing the peace or something and would arrest us if we didn't go back to school. So a temporary truce was called." ShinRa was the inventing and energy business that pretty much ran their city, so powerful they controlled the police force too. Though Zack and his friends worked for ShinRa like every other citizen over eighteen, they planned to change that with The Flickers. "But enough about that, because you're lying, you've not been fine!"

Demyx lurched backwards with a fake gasp. "How do you _know_??"

Zack grinned. "I know things, child, whether you like me to or not, I just know... now what is it?" He leaned in close to his little brother. "Is it a guy?..."

Demyx sighed, shaking his head with a little grin. "Sorry, no." He knew his older brother was bisexual, he had liked guys and had liked girls, had a brief affair once with Sephiroth and an even briefer one with Tifa, but his heart was in his fiancé Aeris. For some reason, however, he seemed to think a man would be better for his little brother.

Zack gasped. "Then it's a _girl_!"

Demyx would have denied it, but Zack would have seen right through it. "Yeah, it is."

Zack looked straight at him. "Bad?"

Demyx shrugged. "I dunno."

Kovu whined.

Zack sighed and stood up, holding out his hand to held the blonde do the say. "In that case, yes it is. She know you?"

"Vaguely. Through Theatre, and she's in Choir," Demyx himself was a band geek, and an actor, "and we know a few of the same people..."

"Not close though."

"Nope."

"Older?"

"How did you know?" asked Demyx dryly, accepting the hand to stand up and stretching. "A senior."

"I'll assume you mean in high school."

Demyx rolled his eyes and cracked a lop-sided grin. "No, she's eighty-two, Zack, what did you think?"

"I thought muffins."

Demyx stared at his grinning, dark-haired older brother for a second before saying "I'll pre-heat the oven."

Zack's grin split its boundaries and he grabbed the loudly protesting Kovu like a football and ran down the stairs shouting "MUFFIN TIIIIIIIIME!"

-

"So, it was muffin time."

Demyx had finally trudged down to the bus stop, but had flour all over him and giant berry-colored stains making his shirt look like some kind of advent-garde tye-dye. Half a stick of melted butter had been poured in his hair as well, but that had been mostly fixed and he walked down the street with the grin of a mad man. Upon hearing the comment of his best friend, he looked up and nodded wildly.

Zexion looked at his friend for a second, then simply peeled his sweatshirt off of himself and handed it to the spiky, buttery haired man. "I'm wearing a long-sleeved shirt under this any way, and you need it more."

Demyx blushed slightly, but accepted the gift. His white inch-strap tank top really did look like some kind of edible finger painting experiment, but the loose navy sweatshirt over his ripped and flour decorated jeans just made him look a little punk. Well, punk with a fondness for baking deserts. But if the sweatshirt was a little loose on him, what was short, scrawny Zexion doing with it?

"Zexion, have you guys ran out of money again?"

His slate-haired friend was quiet for a second, staring off to the side. "To say we ran out is an over exaggeration, if you're hinting at the sweatshirt, yes, it is a hand-me-down from a relative, but only because a cut down on expenses are necessary..."

"In other words, you ran out of money again." Demyx knew that Zexion lived alone with his hard-working but unlucky widowed mother. They were never unhappy really, hi mother was a good-hearted person, but poorness what more of a handicap than most people thought. "Zack and I are always happy to help you out..."

"And if you did, you would quickly fall into the same situation."

"Not true, I could live for ten people on what Sephiroth gives Zack."

"With the energy you use simply being yourself; I would hate to see you try to act like ten."

"Oh come on, think about it! I could be my own musical theatre troop! The traveling Nocturne, come see the most high-energy show ever to hit the stage! Yeah, about that last stage, sorry about it, guess we hit a little hard, our bad..."

Demyx was rewarded with a chuckle and a bit of a private grin from Zexion. And then he knew today would be a good day.

-

By Lunchtime, he knew he was wrong.

The Musical had been announced. The Musical, the biggest joy of the year for every musical and theatrical student. _The Musical._ And this year, it was Moulin Rouge. _Moulin Rouge_, which was one of his favorite musicals with one of the most wonderful plots and a part he could only dream of playing. And that was it- he could only dream of it. Freshmen and Sophomores didn't get main parts, ever, as a rule.

Moulin Rouge, when he was a SOPHOMORE.

"The utter unfairness of it all, oh, woe is me how I wail!" He cried aloud, plunking his overloaded tray down on the lunch table and plopping himself dramatically into his seat, covering one side of his face with a hand in his pure _angst_. "That such a tragedy could occur when I am too young to be a part of it! What is Melpomene, the muse of sorrow, to leave me alone and Main part-less like this! Oh woe, how I waaaaaaaaaail..." The ten-second syllable dragged out as he buried his head in his Zexy-sweater clad arms and began to weep very convincingly. He wasn't an actor for nothing.

"Aw come on, cheer up Demy, I'm sure you have a chance!" cried Sora, one of his freshmen friends immediately, even though he had no idea what was going on. His boyfriend Riku decided to ask for the oblivious brunette. "So Demyx, what prompts this unusual Professor Vincent-worthy angst? Did Ariel walk within twenty feet of you again?"

Demyx raised his forehead just enough to glare at the pompous silver-haired teen, then buried his head back in his arms immediately for a dramatic sigh before ho looked up to explain his predicament. "The theatre of our school this year is performing one of the most beautiful, heartfelt musicals in existence, and I have no hope of being upon the stage for it! I WAAAAAAAAIL..." he cried, loud enough to get the attention of several lunch tables before loudly and probably painfully returning his head to it's former spot between is arms and fake-crying even more wildly than before.

Axel Hughes smiled evilly from across the table and patted Demyx on the head. "Well buddy, you're screwed," earning him an exasperated glare form Roxas Turner.

Larxene, leaning her head on Marluxia's chest, agreed with a "Fucking actors," getting a chuckle from her pink-haired boyfriend.

Demyx looked up and gave then his best glare, which wasn't very good at all. Then, with the most venomous, dark sarcasm he could load into his voice, he said "Oh _thank_ you my _dear_ friends, I knew I could trust you, my beloveds, to lift my spirits in trying times."

"Well, think of it this way," Xigbar Jiraya said absently from his spot lying on top of the lunch table, "Ariel could be Satine..."

Demyx immediately gained a dazed look of surprise as he stared at a completely blank spot on the wall. "Satine?..."

Xemnas Sinister appeared at the table with Saix Curtis-Hoshigaki and a tray mysteriously piled with buns of peach bread, ready to steal the 'dark dramatic actor' position back from Demyx. "Who is this Satine? Is this some new love of Demyx, who had his affections focused on the beautiful red-headed Ariel before now?" He placed the tray down smoothly in front of an open seat, sitting down and placing his crossed legs on top of the table all in one fluid motion. He examined his strangely immaculate black nails as Saix sat down next to him with a china cup of Earl Grey tea. "Is she some dark seductress to attract Demyx's gaze from his love, or has she finally refused him so devastatingly that he has to settle for someone even more unattainable?" drawled the grey-haired man, gesturing dramatically with nearly every word.

"Oh great," muttered Larxene, who was picking apart one of the peach bun with her long lemon-colored fingernails, "the crazies are having an overeating contest again. Don't ANY of you remember last time..."

Demyx gasped. "Satine is no seductress, you uncultured plebian! She is a character, an actress, of highest degree and beauty, of which Ariel could become easily... and NO, she hasn't shot me down yet."

"The reason being Demyx has not mentioned his feelings to her," said Zexion from his spot next to the mulleted one, clearly and a little bitterly, "and 'uncultured plebian' is redundant."

Demyx stared at Zexion with a look of absolute sorrow and betrayal, before throwing his head backwards between his hands and then slamming it back down on the lunch table with a hundred decibel cry of "I KNEW YOU NEVER LOVED MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Everyone started laughing, because that's what you're supposed to do to actors (the like it, trust me, it doesn't matter WHAT you're laughing at) and Demyx started cracking an unseen grin of accomplishment. However, for some reason, this comment pissed Zexion off royally, and for a split second he looked like he wanted nothing more than to shake sense into his best friend, but only a few close people caught the look before he reverted back to his normal hollow stare.

Xigbar, who had kept the same blank stare as he watched the drama-battle, suddenly turned to Larxene and asked her calmly, "Has anyone ever told him Ariel has the same lunch as us, and he just can't see her because of where he sits?"

The "WHAT?" that came from Demyx rivaled even his last shout as Zexion mumbled an excuse and slipped out of the crowded, loud, dizzying room.

-

Buy the time Demyx noticed his Best Friend's absence and had time to freak out guiltily about it, Zexion Riddle was already at the school library. He hadn't ended out eating much, but he didn't much care. It wasn't a problem anymore.

What _was_ a problem was his... fixation on his best friend. Oh fine, he wasn't a prude, he knew he had a 'crush' on Demyx. He just didn't much like applying a term used on lovesick fangirls and dogs to him.

He had thought it over so many times in his head. Demyx had only ever shown signs of liking females, except for the barest hints and strange character flaws. And even if Demyx miraculously gained an appreciation for his own sex, Zexion doubted it would be aimed in his direction. His scrawny, stoic, genius level emo-haired direction.

But no matter what he tried, no matter what logic he supplied or how many times he convinced himself of the futility of his quest, he still felt a maddening softness in heart and fierce devotion and jealousy in his head whenever Demyx walked into the room, bringing the sun in with him. Demyx, tall and loud and quirky, opinionated but passive, not exactly Zexion's opposite- no, closer to his compliment. His other half, the completion of him, the one who made his usually scientific thoughts sound like a very, very bad romance novel. No one would read that. It would be dryer kindling than newspaper.

The librarian, Miss Aeris Gainsborough, Demyx's older brother Zack's fiancé, smiled and quietly greeted him as he walked in. They knew each other, and Aeris would let him stay in here and check out any book he liked, even signing late passes for classes when Zexion desperately needed time away from people. He liked people well enough, and loved observing them, especially one in particular. But sometimes the constant press of chatter and drama and _pain_ was too much for him, something that Aeris seemed to understand well, and since such a thing could not be explained to someone who didn't know, there was a mutual camaraderie between the librarian and student.

"Good afternoon, Zexion. Here for anything in particular?" she asked him in a soft voice with a softer smile, almost like Zexion's own frazzled mother. In fact, the two women had liked each other when they met and now conversed commonly.

Zexion shook his head, but didn't say anything. Aeris picked up on the unspoken message anyway. "Demyx is mooning over Ariel again. Poor boy... and poor girl."

"Poor girl?" asked Zexion in a questioning, deceptively calm tone.

Aeris shook her head. "Ariel is a nice girl, but I can't see her saying yes to poor Demyx. And for a nice girl, saying no to a desperate boy with a real heart and seeing their pain is painful in return. The guilt of that is the kind that stays with you late at night and reminds you of what a terrible person you are and how you don't deserve something like that anyway. But enough about that." She turned to the grey-eyed teen that was hiding his face, but not his ears in a very large book. "Demyx doesn't have a clue, does he? You would have to tell him for him to know. I know it's hard for you..." she trailed off with a shake of her head. "You're the worst off in this, I suppose, to see the depth of their suffering and have it mirrored as your own."

Zexion was silent and still for a moment before nodding. "Miss Gainsborough," he asked quietly, "Would you give me a late pass to my next class?"

She smiled again. "Of course."

For half of his pre-calculus course, Zexion sat on a bench next to a window in the library, staring at absolutely nothing and wishing stupidly of what he couldn't have.

And he knew today just wasn't a good day.

-

_A/N: I'm so terrible, making them all so lonely like that... cry no one likes saying no unless they're a complete bitch, just trust me on this one. _

_Do you like? If so, please tell! Do you not like? Do you see a spelling error? Did I make a glaring mistake? Did you have waffles for breakfast? Have a suggestion? Comment? Haiku? If so, or if there's anything else that simply must be let out, review for Kiisa! She will love it no matter what it is!_

_I have no real comment, other that I love this so much already... and if you haven't, go rent Moulin Rouge and don't be ashamed to cry your eyes out! That movie is BEAUTIFUL, I need the soundtrack so badly, for Ewan McGregor's heavenly voice and the 'Roxanne' medley type song if nothing else._

_Thanks for reading, and read on! -Freaky _


End file.
